Flashback: May 5, 2011

Republican state Rep. Tim Moffitt has filed legislation that would seize Asheville’s water system, turning control over to the Metropolitan Sewerage District. Asheville City Council member Bill Russell, who also sits on the MSD board, said Moffitt didn’t inform either body before proposing the legislation.

With a May 11, 2011 bonus quote:

Vice Mayor Brownie Newman says he, Council member Esther Manheimer and City Manager Gary Jackson met with Moffitt for 30 minutes during a trip to Raleigh on May 2, and the legislator did not mention the water-system bill.

“It’s baffling,” Newman tells Xpress. “It’s one thing not to be proactive, but when people have travelled four hours to see you, to talk about the issues we need to work on, it’s strange to not even mention that there’s going to be a bill to seize a water system that the city has operated for the last 100 years.”

“This was out of the blue; there was no discussion about it,” Newman says. “I’m opposed to it, I think Council will be opposed to it. It’s frankly pretty outrageous that a legislator would propose such a far-reaching piece of legislation without consulting us.”